


Strip It for Parts

by holdingdaylight



Series: 14 Days of Quaranklaine [6]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Blangst, M/M, Rich Blaine, like really rich!blaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdingdaylight/pseuds/holdingdaylight
Summary: Unfortunately for Blaine, all the money in the world can't buy him a friend.
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Series: 14 Days of Quaranklaine [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681816
Comments: 7
Kudos: 52





	Strip It for Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Day 6! Blangst! We love to see it!
> 
> I did struggle with this prompt, because I think everything I write is blangst. So I had to make Blaine his own lil world to be tormented in. Keep up with the rest of our works on [our twitter!](http://twitter.com/quaranklaine)

Lima, Ohio didn’t have a private school similar to Dalton Academy.

So Blaine was enrolled in public school, at William McKinley High, and had no choice but to hang up his uniform in exchange for casual wear. It was odd not putting on a tie every morning, even odder stepping into the dimly lit halls that smelled so faintly of mildew. 

While Dalton had many traditions regarding the arrival of a newcomer, they were nowhere near as barbaric as McKinley’s. On his second day, dressed in his Sunday best, Blaine arrived early to school in case he got lost again, and was greeted with an ice-cold slushie thrown into his face.

Blaine wiped the slush from his eyes and smiled at the gang of football players standing before him. “Ha-ha,” he said, forcibly. “That was very funny. You guys are lucky I have on-call dry cleaning.” 

He didn’t understand the confused looks they all gave him after that.

The students of McKinley are also different than Blaine’s pals at Dalton. For starters, nobody says hi, everyone reacting to Blaine’s friendly wave with a snarl or a sneer. The students either keep to themselves or form their own little groups, standing in tight circles that nobody can get through.

It’s fine, Blaine thinks. He’s new. It always takes a while for people to adjust to the new kid. Sooner than later, those circles will open up, and he’ll be invited in with wide arms.

Two weeks pass before Blaine thinks there might be something wrong with him, because every time he walks into the cafeteria, it seems as though every table is suddenly unavailable. 

He’s forced to sit at the table towards the back, with the broken leg and perpetual puddle of something sticky on the surface. He takes out his lunch, some sort of puff pastry that their housekeeper made for him early this morning, and eats by himself, for the second week in a row.

At least in class, everyone is forced to talk to each other. Especially his European history class, where almost all of the students seem educated and can read at their own grade level. 

Their teacher isn’t the brightest, however, with Blaine often raising his hand to correct her, because he already learned all of this in his first semester at Dalton. She never does say thank you.

But Kurt Hummel does. He sits next to Blaine and leans over to whisper, “Thank god you said something. If I had to hold my tongue any longer I’d bite it off.”

Luckily Blaine’s propriety has been instilled in him since birth, so he doesn’t forget to say _‘You’re welcome.’_ in the haze and confusion of someone talking to him and meaning it. 

All the same, he does stare at Kurt’s face a little too long, as he tries to figure out if Kurt is friend or foe.

When the bell rings to excuse them from class, Blaine takes his time packing up his supplies in order to wait for Kurt, who is meticulous about the way he stores his mechanical pencils. 

“Uh, Kurt?” Blaine says, shouldering his leather satchel while clutching his textbook to his chest. “Would you like to come over later? I think you would be a great co-conspirator for our presentations next week, and not because you’re the only one here who can hold an intellectual conversation for more than five minutes.”

“Well, thank you. You are right in that I wouldn’t discuss the Peace of Westphalia with anyone else in this class,” Kurt says with a tight-lipped smile. “So, sure, I’d be happy to.”

“Fantastic!” Blaine says, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, for Kurt quirks an eyebrow at him and smiles wearily. “My driver will be here after school, if you could meet me outside at three?”

Kurt’s weary smile grows skeptical, but he nods. “I’ll be there.”

Blaine has noticed that nobody at this school has a driver, or, if they do, it’s their parents being forced to pick them up. He’s sure his father would pick him up if Blaine needed him to, or if he weren’t so busy with starting up the expansion of his law firm.

The rest of the school day is a drag, but Blaine doesn’t let it knock him down. He has a friend, or at the very least, he’s making a friend. His third week here really is the charm.

Kurt is on the front steps of the school at three o’clock, greeting Blaine with a warm smile. It’s been so long since someone smiled at him that Blaine nearly hugs Kurt on instinct. He settles for matching Kurt’s smile with one of his own instead.

“So, why a driver?” Kurt asks once they’re in the backseat of Blaine’s dad’s town car. “Did you fail your driving test?”

“No, nothing like that,” Blaine says with a laugh. “My parents didn’t want me driving to school and leaving my car unattended in the parking lot. For some reason they say it’s a prime target for vandalism.”

But his car isn’t even firsthand. It was his mother’s Lexus before she decided to opt for a newer model.

Still, Kurt gawks at the car as they pass it in the garage, hovering one hand above the shiny exterior as if he’s afraid to touch it. 

“This is your car?” he asks with a choke. “Sorry to tell you this, Blaine, but I don’t think anyone would dare vandalize this baby. No, they would _definitely_ strip it for parts.”

Blaine rests against the hood of his Lexus, not understanding the way Kurt gasps like Blaine had just tainted it. “She’s secondhand, so I’m not sure her parts would sell for much.” He intends for it to come off as a joke, but Kurt doesn’t laugh. “I’m kidding.”

Kurt only nods, his weary smile from earlier returning.

When Blaine would invite his friends from Dalton over to his old house, nobody ever stood in the foyer in wide-eyed shock, because a marble staircase and a chandelier were common in most of their houses. 

He guesses Kurt doesn't have either, for he does stand in the foyer in wide-eyed shock, turning in slow circles as he takes it all in.

“So, uh, yeah,” Blaine says sheepishly, threading his fingers together. “This is it. My room is on the third floor, my parents get the second, and - oh! This is Eden!”

Their housekeeper, Eden, enters the room to welcome Blaine home. “Welcome home, Blaine. Who is this?”

“Eden, this is my friend, Kurt. We’re in history class together.”

Eden casts a knowing smile at Blaine before he greets Kurt with a warm welcome and a handshake. He hopes he isn’t blushing too hard when Kurt turns to look at him again. 

Besides his Dalton classmates, Eden has been it for Blaine, his best friend since Blaine was in elementary school. He used to call him his very own Alfred Pennyworth, which became a depressing revelation when he entered high school and realized everyone else had best friends their own age.

Who didn’t work for them.

So while Blaine finds Kurt attractive, and his smile makes Blaine blush down to his bones, he knows he needs a friend first, before anything or anyone else.

Eden takes both of their jackets, before returning to the kitchen, most likely to start on dinner. Blaine leads Kurt up to the third floor, their footsteps tapping neatly against the marble flooring. It takes longer than usual to get to Blaine’s bedroom, with Kurt inspecting every picture, painting and plant.

Blaine wonders if he would do the same thing if he were in Kurt’s home, but can’t imagine how different it would be.

He hopes, as he goes to open the doors to his bedroom, that Kurt’s reaction isn’t as dramatic. He’s beginning to feel bad, like he should have hid this all away before inviting Kurt over. But his bedroom is only spacious, with a walk-in closet and a separate bathroom; the only thing that makes his room special is the view of the oncoming sunset.

“Wow,” Kurt says with a whistle, entering the room slowly as he looks around. 

“It’s not perfect,” Blaine tries to explain, pushing a moving box out of the way. “I have to put my posters up still, and unpack a few more of my trophies, but, uh, yeah.”

“Your room is bigger than my house, Blaine. Of course it’s perfect.”

Well, Blaine could argue that it isn’t, because sometimes it’s so lonely and empty that his voice could carry an echo. He could scream from the third floor, and his parents would only hear a distant whisper from the second. 

He figures Kurt wouldn’t care about any of that, so he keeps quiet as he goes to sit at his desk. “So, where should we start?” he asks, taking out his textbooks and notes. “Truth be told, I did learn most of this in my freshman year at Dalton, but I could use a refresher.”

Kurt gingerly sits on the edge of Blaine’s bed, testing the mattress’ bounce before giving it a nod of approval. He’s still looking around in a daze as he asks, “Dalton sounds so fancy. What was it like?”

“Fancy? Well, in comparison to McKinley, yeah, I guess it is,” Blaine laughs. “For one, all of our clubs had proper funding, so we weren’t hawking saltwater taffy at random passersby for their spare change.”

“I see.”

“We also didn’t throw slushies in people’s faces on the daily.”

“That’s McKinley for you,” Kurt says, laughing uneasily

“So I’m discovering,” Blaine says, shrugging. “I wish I could adapt better. It hasn’t been very easy.”

Kurt looks hard at Blaine, the shock from his eyes gone and replaced with uncertainty. “You haven’t made it very easy on yourself, Blaine.”

Blaine chuckles, but his head tilts in question. “What do you mean?”

Kurt waves a floundering hand around the room, his pale face darkening as he splutters, “All of this! It’s all anyone notices about you.”

“I can’t exactly turn ‘this’ off, Kurt. It’s my life.”

“Fine, but you don’t have to go down the halls announcing that you drive a Lexus and have your own personal dry cleaner on call!”

Oh, that digs under Blaine’s skin, and suddenly his chest feels so similar to his bedroom; big and lonely and empty.

“That’s a reach,” Blaine says with a curl of his lip. “I know better than to flaunt my family’s social status.”

“Do you?” Kurt asks as he stands to his feet. “Because I think you invited me here to do just that.”

“No, I - Kurt -” Blaine gets up too, ready to chase after Kurt if he has to, so desperate, so close to having had a friend. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but I swear I asked you to come here so we could hang out. That’s it. Honest!”

Kurt picks up his bag and swings it over his shoulder, his head held up high. 

“You’re right, I don’t understand,” Kurt says, defiantly. “Like how you don’t and won’t ever understand that most of us at McKinley are just trying to get by, that most of us won’t go to the colleges of our dreams because we can’t afford it.”

There’s still sun shining outside, but Blaine’s world goes dark. He goes quiet with his acceptance. 

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, daring to take a step closer to Kurt. “I didn’t realize.”

“How could you?” Kurt shrugs, his eyes shining. “The closest you’ve ever come to poverty is when you’re standing in the lunch line at McKinley.”

When Kurt turns for the doors, Blaine turns with him, feeling his heart drop further down his body with every step that Kurt takes away from him. “Really, Kurt, I’m sorry!” Blaine yells, their footsteps so much louder on the way down. “Come on, please, just stay for dinner. Eden can make anything you like, and we can talk about this!”

Kurt stops at the very bottom of the staircase and spins to face Blaine. “You can’t buy friendship, Blaine. That isn’t how this world works.”

Blaine is left wordless, as Kurt grabs his own coat from the hallway closet before storming through the front doors. Eden steps into the foyer then, looking from the door closing shut to Blaine’s open and lost face.

“Is your friend not staying for dinner?”

Blaine waits, in hopes of something he doesn’t deserve, but Kurt doesn’t come back. 

“No, he had to go,” Blaine tells his housekeeper. “It’s just the two of us tonight.”

Like it’s been every night before, and will be every night after.

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone else watch Gotham and see the resemblance between Bruce and Blaine pls say yes. 
> 
> Anyways. See you all tomorrow for some enemies-to-lovers! Thanks again for all your encouragement. We've got some exciting things coming.


End file.
